Wednesday, July 3, 2013

A Quick Weekend Project

             This past weekend I completed a quick redo of a nightstand. I found this piece of furniture in a friend’s giveaway pile. She had found it at a garage sale recently but had not found any significant use for it. Anyway, it looked suitable for use as a nightstand in my daughter’s room and so I brought it home.

           


           It seems to have been hand built by someone but was now in a pretty beat up state and had no hardware whatsoever. I did not want to spend too much time on it (the high heat in my garage workspace might be a reason) and so chose several short cuts for this project.

             I opted to not sand this piece even though it had a glossy finish on it. Instead I used Zinsser123 to prime the table. I put on one very even coat of the primer using a bristle brush for the open surfaces and a foam brush for the tighter spaces and let it dry thoroughly (which was very quickly because of the heat this past weekend). I had some leftover paints from previous projects that I wanted to use. I painted on two coats of the chosen deep blue color on the outsides and for a pop of surprise, a lighter blue on the insides of the drawers. While I let it all dry completely, I made a visit to my local home improvement store and chose these clear knobs for a modern look...and besides I liked the way the blue reflected off the clear knobs. Since the original piece had no hardware, I had to drill a single hole in each drawer face for the knob.


          






































             I was going to stop at this point, screw on the knobs, and call the piece complete but it seemed to be missing something. It needed some more interest…so I used painter’s tape and taped off a simple rectangular outline on the drawer face. I filled in between the tape with the same light blue as the insides of the drawers. Remember to peel off the tape just when the paint is tacky and not completely dry as this ensures clean bleed free lines. After that dried, I screwed on the knobs and it was done.

        All in all this project involved the use of supplies I already had, took only a few hours to complete, and additionally cost only the purchase of the two knobs. Such short quick weekend projects are so instantly gratifying! 

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